If “square eggs” once captured the imaginations of left-brained creatives, the same idea has also preoccupied right-brained, scientific types.
This time, rather than list all my examples in one long post, I’m doling them out one day at a time.
We, therefore, declare this: Square Eggs of Science & Industry Week. (A.K.A.: Egg2 Week.)
Day 1: David Adams, Eggs Having Artificial Shells, (1947)
… the rectangular shape of each egg greatly facilitates packing and packaging of eggs in quantity, with maximum utilization of all available space. Yet each egg retains its individuality and may be used the same as an ordinary egg. When its sealing tape 14 is removed, the cover section 12 may be lifted off and the egg substance in section 10 may be deposited wherever desired, such as into a mixing bowl or into a frying pain. If a boiled egg is wanted, one of my improved eggs, in sealed condition, will be deposited in boiling water and left for the required time.
Although Adams filed his patent above in 1949, he had originally tried to patent his idea in 1947. That was the year that newspapers and magazines across the U.S and Canada began publicizing his invention.
“Science Creates Square Egg; Hens Still Lay ’Em Round” says Vancouver Sun on Oct. 08, 1947
AT LAST — SQUARE EGGS! Any self-respecting hen would disown it, but the square egg has at last been invented — by man. It’s a plastic “cube” designed to hold the contents of a single egg with its shell removed.
Science Digest, 1948
SQUARE EGGS
American families soon will have a new morsel to round out a square meal — a square egg.
… The idea was hatched by one David Adams, a Concord, Mass., inventor who tells all about it in the “Digest of New Inventions,” published by the National Foundation for Science and Industry.
Actually, the square egg is a plastic “cube” which is designed to hold the contents of a single egg with its shell removed.
The hen’s job ends when she lays the egg in the nest. Science takes over from there.
…Breaking of the eggs, packaging and sealing of the shells can be done by automatic machinery, Adams says. He is working closely with a New York outfit which has developed a new method which “shocks” food by electronic processes, keeping food fresh without refrigeration.
Idah-Best News
Idaho Egg Producers Co-operative Association, 1947
Egg That Features Artificial Shell Is All That It’s Cracked Up to Be
NY Times, 1953
Despite all of the publicity, I can find no published photos of the product. Which leads me to wonder whether Adams square eggs ever actually came to market.
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